The NHL's last offer to the NHLPA came with a 12-percent pay cut, which wasn't unexpected—the biggest current issue is how to deal with current contracts. Players don't want to lose a dollar on deals they've already signed, and the closest owners will come to that is paying players in full for the next two years with money borrowed against their future earnings.

Ovechkin added that there are legal ways to stay in the Russian league, though he apparently didn't elaborate. The NHL and KHL have an agreement to honor each other's contracts, which is an issue. The bigger deal for Ovechkin, who's currently making millions for Dynamo Moscow, is that breaching his NHL contract could screw up his international status—the IHHF could stop him from playing in the 2014 Olympics. Those are in Sochi, Russia.

Coincidentally, Ovechkin broke a pane of glass during a game Saturday ... with his head. He was attempting to check Atlant Moscow's Alexei Mikhnov and left the game for a bit so the team's staff could pick the glass shards out of his jersey and bandage up his hand.

Several high-profile European players are spending their lockout in the KHL—Ovechkin's teammate Nicklas Backstrom joined him with Dynamo earlier this week. Evgeni Malkin, Pavel Datsyuk, Ilya Bryzgalov and Zdeno Chara are also scattered throughout the league.